


Where Do We Go From Here? (AU)

by kateorangesky11



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Clara Oswald - Freeform, Doctor Who AU, Hell Bent, Madam Mayor - Freeform, Mayor Me, Series 9, TARDIS - Freeform, The Doctor - Freeform, ashildr - Freeform, doctor who alternate ending, lady me - Freeform, series 9 alternate ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 14:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8375458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateorangesky11/pseuds/kateorangesky11
Summary: The hybrid is destroyed. Now it's only the Doctor and Me at the end of the universe.





	

“I don’t think I could ever forget you,” she said. 

There was a moment of suspense as they looked into each other’s eyes. He didn’t know what he hoped would happen, and he didn’t feel like going into that tragic abyss that was his own psyche right at this moment. So he contented himself with only gazing at those brown eyes he knew so well. A strange feeling washed over him as he grappled with the possibility that he may never see those eyes again, or ever even remember what they looked like, and suddenly he knew which way he wanted this to go. At that moment, her eyelids started to droop.

 “No,” she whispered, and her knees fell out from under her.

 “No, no no no no, Clara!” He caught her around the shoulders and slowly sank to his knees, carrying her with him. She felt horribly slack in his arms, and her black hair fell like curtains over her face.

 “Clara, Clara, Clara…” he said over and over, brushing her hair from her face. “Not again, not you…”

 “Doctor…” she whispered, one weak hand reaching up to grip his lapel. “Doctor, listen to me, you must listen, because this is very important.”

 “Clara, I will set this right, I will!” he said. She looked up at him with those big brown eyes, a smirk forming on her lips.

 “You never do as you’re told, do you?”

 “Please, please, Clara, I didn’t mean for this to happen!”

 “Will you listen to me?” she said, tugging at his lapel. For once, he bit his tongue, ignoring the burning in his eyes.

 “Don’t let it get to you, alright? All this, the universe, it’s got good in it, and you need to know that, I think you forget sometimes,” she said, haltingly, eyelids fluttering. “I think you forget but it’s important, this is important. You are important.”

 “Clara, I’m so sorry. I should’ve learned—“

 “Shh, shh, it’s alright, Doctor. Hey,” she said softly, her hand moving to his face. He braced her on his knee and put his hand on hers. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I don’t—“ She swallowed hard, tears brimming in her eyes. “I’m not—“ She gasped again, and shook her head. Then she looked up at him.

 “Chin up, Doctor. Run like the bloody wind, you clever, clever boy. And remember—remember me, will you?” The Doctor shut his eyes, trying to control the tears that were starting to come in full force. He murmured apology after apology, guilt already eating a hole out of his insides. Her thumb moved under his hand to stroke his cheek.

 “Hey, hush now,” she said. He opened his eyes to find her smiling up at him. “And promise me one thing, yeah?”

 He nodded, unable to speak over the lump in his throat.

 “Never, ever do as you’re told.”

 He gasped out a chuckle. “Oh, you know me,” he choked out.

 “I’m…I’m…” She took a deep breath. “The best—“ her breath caught in her throat—“the best times in my life have been this. With you. And it tears me apart that I won’t remember those times. But—“ her eyes burned fiercely into his own now—“I will remember _you_.”

 Her eyelids fluttered and closed. The hand on his cheek slackened, and her head drooped to the side. He clasped her hand and held it to his hearts.

 “Oh, Clara. I’m afraid you won’t.”

 He gently set her down. He let his hands gently cup the sides of her face. He bent over to kiss her forehead.

 He could feel Me’s presence behind him. He straightened, but didn’t take his hands from Clara’s face.

 “Happy now? You got what you wanted,” he croaked.

 “That’s just cruel. You know I didn’t want this,” he heard from the doorway.

 “You didn’t. Oh, you didn’t, did you? The hybrid destroyed, that’s what they wanted, you wanted the same thing. I’m the hybrid. You wanted me destroyed.” There was no answer. He straightened a crease in Clara’s sweater.

 “You need to leave,” he said finally.

 “Leave?” He heard her heels click on the floor as she strode up next to him. “Where, exactly? We’re at the end of the universe, remember?”

 “Oh, I do remember.” He let the import of that sink in for a moment. “Everything has its time, and everything dies, _Ashildr_ ,” he replied, fixing her with an icy glare. She shuddered.

 “But…What’s going to happen to Clara?”

 “Why would you need to know? You’ll be dead soon anyway. It’s not like you’ll be living to know, so might as well go out there right now, just end it all—”

 “Doctor, stop—“

 “You knew you were going to have to face it sooner or later—“

 “—Doctor, please, stop—“

 “—and I mean, you did get to see the end of the universe—“

 “—Doctor, please, it’s not fair—“

 “—and that’s not a thing every human can—what?” He took his hands from Clara’s face and stood, facing Me. She was quaking in fear, although whether it was at the prospect of her immediate and eventual death or of him he wasn’t sure. He hoped it was the latter.

 “Not fair, you say? Not fair? No, Madam Mayor, what I did to you was not fair. Not to you, and certainly not to the many whose lives you’ve touched and ruined. Many that I probably don’t know about because I haven’t experienced them yet, have I? You’re much older than me now, practically ancient even by my terms, and if I ever live to be your age, the amount of hurt and pain I’ll have caused is sure to be astronomical, so how can I expect any less of my dear creation? No, Ashildr, it was not fair to you to have lived as long as you have, to have lived as many lives as you have, to have experienced and then forgotten everything, over and over again, until you had no more humanity left in you to care for anything other than yourself. It was not fair of me to do what I did to you, but now, when everything is ending and everything is dying, the only thing that is fair is that you go with it.”

 She began crying in earnest. Her tears were silent, but her face was screwed up in pain.

 “But this is a TARDIS!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms out. “An extra, even! You have your own, what would you need this one for?”

 The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

 “This TARDIS? You want a TARDIS?”

 “Why not?” she replied desperately, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “You said we could never travel together, we were too alike, but don’t you see, this way we wouldn’t need to! You would never need to see me again!” He didn’t answer, and she took her opportunity. “We would be separate, I would never land anyplace where I knew you were! I could—“ Tears began to well up in her eyes again. “I could learn to be human again. I could find someone, someone like her—“ She flung her arm out to gesture at Clara on the ground, who looked for all the world as though she were just blissfully asleep. The Doctor’s vision went red and he advanced on her.

 “Find someone like Clara? How dare you speak her name, when you are the very reason she’s here! Would you like to feel her lack of heartbeat again? Would you?” She flinched and drew back from him, but he didn’t stop. “That is _your_ fault, Ashildr! You even touch someone like Clara, and you think they’d escape her fate? Everything around you dies, Me.”

 “Like everything dies around _you_?” she shot back. “You forget the very reason that I created that sanctuary all those millennia ago—because of the people left over by your mistakes, Doctor! Wherever you go, death and despair follow. Sure, you may be a bright light to some, but like the lightning, it flashes only for a moment and leaves a scorched, stinking, dark world behind for those who you claimed to be helping. You are right, Doctor. You and I are not that different. The difference is that I can forget, and I know you can’t.”

 There was a long moment, filled only with their heavy breaths and the occasional crashing noise coming in over the monitors from the collapsing universe outside. Me was clenching and unclenching her fists, a fierce look in her face. The anger the Doctor had felt just moments ago burned out, leaving him feeling burnt and rocky. He let out a sigh.

 “Take the controls,” he said, nodding to the console. Me’s fierceness melted, revealing uncertainty and confusion. “You heard me,” he said, “take the controls.”

 A wave of intense relief seemed to pass through Me’s entire being. She seemed close to tears again, but hid it by going to the controls. The Doctor didn’t move from his spot, but knelt again by Clara’s head.

 “First, flick the three driver switches and turn the spinny knob thing, you’ll know it when you see it,” he said as he pushed some hair back from Clara’s brow. He heard some clicking from behind him, and a whirring noise. He continued calling out instructions, complete with coordinates for wherever and whenever she chose to go first. He listened as her movements became more and more excited, her heels clacking as she flew around the console.

 “Done! What next?” she called out finally.

 “Now pull the big lever, the one you always see me pull,” he sighed.

 Me gave a small grunt as she pulled down on the massive lever. The TARDIS made a great grating noise, the Cloister Bell went off _—one! two! three!_ —and then stopped. The Doctor heard Me as she ran to the door, flung the doors open and—

 Silence. Winds swept in from the doors, blowing hair into Clara’s face. The Doctor gently smoothed it away again.

 A great crash came from outside, and Me made a small despairing noise.

 “This…” she muttered, almost too softly for the Doctor to hear. “This isn’t right.”

 “Where are we, Me?” the Doctor called. He knew this was cruel, but the charred rock that was his insides was all out of empathy for her.

 “This is not right, Doctor! We’re still right where we were! What did I miss?”

 She slammed the doors shut and ran back to the console.

 “It was flicking the three driver switches, and then—is the brake on or something?” She pushed buttons and pulled several levers.

 “No, the brake isn’t on.”

 “Then what was it? What—did you lie to me, Doctor?” she squeaked.

 “Well, yes, actually, but not in the way you think I did. And not directly.”

 “You gave me faulty directions!” she screeched.

 “No.”

 “You’ve given me coordinates to the same place and time to keep me here!”

 “No.”

 “You’ve left out something!”

 “Yes.”

 She stomped over until she was across from him, glaring at him over Clara. He glanced up at her for a moment, then back down.

 “What did you leave out?”

 “Oh, it’s just a simple thing, really, a little peculiarity with TARDISes—“

 “Tell me how to properly operate this TARDIS!”

 “I did tell you how to properly operate—“

 “No, you left something out, you said you did—“

 “Well, yes, I did say that.”

 “Then what. Was. It. Doctor?” she said through clenched teeth. “Tell me, now!”

 He looked up at her now. She was seething, brown eyes blazing, hair in disarray from her flight around the console. She looked positively livid. Perhaps another time the Doctor would get a sort of sick satisfaction out of seeing her like this, but he was too empty at the present to feel anything but a vacant sort of disdain for her.

 “See, the thing about Time Lords is—we’re really jealous of our technology. And a TARDIS, well, it’s just about the craftiest invention the Time Lords have ever created, so all TARDISes are built with a sort of failsafe.” He paused, letting that sink in, seeing if she would get it without him having to say it. Apparently, she didn’t.

 “Which is?” she growled.

 “Only a Time Lord can fly a TARDIS.”

 Her jaw dropped. He saw disbelief flick through her features, and then anger, and then dread.

 “No. It can’t be,” she muttered finally.

 “I’m afraid it is, Madam Mayor,” he replied.

 “No…no! You’re not putting me through this again!” she screamed.

 “I’m afraid I am,” he replied calmly. She began to pace in front of him.

 “But—no! That can’t be! I am not dying here! I have lived too long!” she ranted, pulling at her hair.

 “You are too right, Ashildr. You have lived too long,” the Doctor murmured. He was quickly tiring of this.

 “I am not dying here, Doctor! I’m not ready to die! Please, I’m not ready to die!” she said, tears starting to run from her eyes anew. She fixed her eyes on him, and he saw an idea form in her mind.

 “You can fly it! You can fly this TARDIS!” She ran to him and skidded to her knees next to him, above Clara’s head.

 “Yes, I can. And what do you suppose you’ll do when I leave in my own TARDIS and you still can’t fly this one?”

 “You can leave me back in time, and I’ll live it all over again. I don’t mind! Leave me in any century you like!”

 “No,” he refused flatly.

 “Why not?” she cried. She looked absolutely miserable now, face streaked with red, nails carving themselves into her thighs.

 “Everything has its time, and everything dies, Ashildr.”

 “And who are you to decide?” she shrieked. “Who are you to decide the fate of a human being? You did it with me before as you’ve done it with countless others, as you did it to Clara! You took her entire past away from her—“

 “To keep her alive!” the Doctor growled viciously.

 “Without a heartbeat. How long do you think it will be until she notices, Doctor?” The Doctor dug his fingernails into his palms. “A day? An hour? And what will she think? How will she be able to explain that to herself? And there’s her death to consider.” Me leaned forward, eyes hard and gleaming, cutting into him with every word she said.

 “What are you going to do about her death, huh? Because it has to happen there, at that moment, one heartbeat left. How is she going to get to that point if she doesn’t remember ever meeting you, never again travels in the TARDIS? Or are you going to take her?” She leaned back on her haunches, letting out a mirthless laugh. “Oh, there’s a thought. Are you going to come, at some predetermined time of your choosing, and whisk her away to her death like some sort of deranged Grim Reaper? Give her some time, travel around for a couple of centuries until you’ve become distanced from her enough, until she’s forgotten like Sarah Jane or Rose Tyler or Donna—yeah, I know about them—and you can feel good about taking her on a magical journey to her death? Wow, I knew you were callous, Doctor, but I didn’t know you were that heartless.”

 The Doctor didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. Her brown eyes cut him like daggers. Every word of hers rang true.

 “You hadn’t thought that through yet, had you?” she said in a sing-song voice. “The heartbeat. Her death. Because you are so right, Doctor. Everything has its time.”

She made to stroke Clara’s head, but his hand shot out like a viper and caught her wrist in a vice grip. She hissed at the pain, but when she looked back at him she was smiling a horrific, humorless grin.

 “And everything dies,” she said softly.

 He gripped her wrist tighter, wanting to hurt her, wanting to break her, and all she did was keep smiling.

 “You’re a monster, Ashildr,” he murmured at last, throwing away her wrist.

 “I learned from the best,” she replied. She rose, and staggered to the door. She hesitated, hand over the handle of the double doors.

 “I do thank you, Doctor. For my life,” she said, still facing away from him. “Truly, I do. You did what you thought was right. No one can fault you for that.”

 She opened the doors and strode out into the dying embers of the universe, her words leaving the Doctor with a sickening taste in his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a simple "what if the reverse happened" story for the end of Series 9. Then, as my dissatisfactions with the ending cropped up (like the fact that it's been stated before that only Time Lords can fly a TARDIS), it turned into a sort of conflict story. At least until I wrote myself into a hole that I don't know how to get out of.
> 
> So apologies for the ending, and I don't believe I'll be writing a continuation (unless The Doctor finds some way to remedy the situation). But I wanted to put this out here anyway. I hope you guyze enjoyed it. :)


End file.
